by Jeff Colbourne
Northern News Services

NNSL (Jan 16/98) - With the exception of a few pieces of tinsel clinging about the home, Christmas should be but a memory by now.

That means all the decorations have been carefully packed away and stored until next year, and the dull, dried-out Christmas tree in your home has been taken down and hauled outside for disposal.

Which leaves you wondering: Where will my Christmas tree go?

Well, lay all your questions, queries and speculations to rest -- this is the inside scoop on the fate of your Christmas tree.

This week, a crew of inmates at the Yellowknife Correctional Centre, under the supervision of YCC employee Jack Barnet, has been driving around town in a truck, picking up those old Christmas trees.

Their destination, not heaven but the municipal dump, where Dave Neufeld, solid waste management foreman, eagerly awaits their arrival.

"We'll stockpile them until it warms up a bit," said Neufeld after off-loading one truck load on Wednesday morning at the dump.

The trees are frozen stiff, said Neufeld, so running it through the city's chipper at the moment would be too hard on the machine.

In the spring however, the trees -- the ones that have not been dragged away and used as windbreaks around the home -- will be run through a chipper and turned into mulch.

From there, the wood chips will end up in any number of places around the city.

Last year, Yellowknife community services came to the dump and used up most of the wood chips.

Neufeld said they scattered the tree remains along the Niven Lake walking trail.

"They usually get first dibs on it," said Neufeld.

Any wood chips left over are kept at the municipal dump and used for landfill cover, which makes great fertilizer for plants and grass that grow naturally around the dump, Neufeld added.

Neufeld said that by the time YCC crews finish picking up the trees today, they should have a pile about three metres high located across from the salvage site.